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'Emdr.(eye movement desensitization/reprocessing)'.
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Our ref: NIC 19816-2GHDO
5th February 2009
Dear Ms Gardener,
Re: Information Request - Freedom of Information Act 2000
I can confirm that the NHS Information Centre for Health and Social Care has considered your query dated the 13th January 2009.
“Freedom of Information request - Emdr (eye movement desensitization/reprocessing)
How many patients have received this treatment in England in the last ten years.
What research is being done by the NHS to obtain empirical evidence to ascertain its efficacy? In those ten years?”
Unfortunately the NHS Information Centre does not hold data which includes details of eye movement desensitization/reprocessing procedures. I believe this process is used by psychiatric professionals to treat trauma in a mental health setting and is likely to always occur in a hospital environment. Data regarding hospital activity for this treatment may be obtained from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) if the relevant clinical codes exist. We are not able to check our information systems at this point as you have not provided the relevant clinical codes. I also think it is worth noting that clinical codes are not managed by our organisation.
If you require the correct clinical codes to extract the data from these tables you will need to contact Connecting for Health:
Once you have obtained the relevant clinical codes, Information can be downloaded for free from www.hesonline.nhs.uk by following the link 'Accessing the data' from the front page, then clicking on 'Freely available data'. This navigates you to either inpatients or outpatients excel/PDF data which is free to download and is accompanied by explanatory notes.
You can download a `ICD10 proforma' for diagnosis codes or a `OPCS proforma' for operation/procedure codes. Once you have the codes I have been informed that you can extract the data from the tables on HES online.
If the data in these tables do not meet your requirements then you can request a tailor made report, in the form of a tabulation or an extract of the raw data. For this you need to follow the link on the front page of the website which says 'Request a tailor made report'. This link then directs you to a page where you can download a tabulation/extract request pack which also includes details of where you send the completed pack as well as the charges that may occur as this is not covered by the FOI Act which only includes `recorded' `held' information.
In response to your second request
“What research is being done by the NHS to obtain empirical evidence to ascertain its efficacy? In those ten years?”
A letter was sent to yourselves on 29th January 2009 requesting further clarification of this point, and to date I have not received a response therefore I am not in a position to answer this at this stage. Once I receive a reply from you I would be happy to respond.
If you are not satisfied with the way in which your response was handled, you may request a review from the Director of Information Governance, Clare Sanderson, at the above address.
Further information about your right to complain under the Freedom of Information Act is available from the Information Commissioner's Office, Wilmslow, Cheshire, and on The Information Commissioner's website www.ico.gov.uk.
I will assume that your request to the organisation is now closed.
Yours sincerely,
Julie Shippen
Higher Information Governance Officer
The copyright to the information we are disclosing is held by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The re-use of this information for any commercial purpose is subject to the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. Should you wish to re-use this information in any way you must ask us for specific permission relating to that you wish to use. If we agree to such re-use it may be subject to licensing and may involve a fee. Applications for re-use should be submitted to information.governance@ic.nhs.uk. No re-use should take place until you have formally asked for permission and we have informed you of our decision.
